Who the hell is Randy Newman? Apparently he sang this song. Whatever Randy, the only song I’ve got in my head is The Message by Grandmaster Flash. Anyhoo, that’s not what’s important here. I wanted to take a few minutes out from wiping my new MAC foundation out of my eyes (seriously they won’t stop streaming?) and write about a few things I’ve struggled with recently. Boo hoo. Nah not really at all but they have been getting under my skin.

Let’start with the main one: plain bloody confusion. Does anyone else scroll through Instagram or Facebook or magazines and look at the people working out, posting pictures of twenty healthy meals a day, rock hard abs and sweaty selfies? Do you look at them and think “but I’m sitting at work trying not to eat all the food I brought with me in one go… I’m not in the gym going mental on the treadmill or the bench press? Am I failing at life? Is this why I haven’t lost twenty pounds? Will I ever be worthy?”

I was literally finding myself in a little vortex, spinning around and around, surrounded by smoothies and protein bars and weights and workouts and transformation Tuesdays and aaaaaaaaaaaargh. So I’ve decided to take a little step back from it all. Get some reality into my line of sight. After all, we are NOT the same. I work Monday to Friday (pretty comfy hours compared to some people!) and sometimes I want to eat a baguette or drink a goddamn latte. Ok? YES! It is totally ok thanks. So why am I telling myself it’s not ok? That I should be eating “clean” 24/7 and training twice a day every day? My god. I’m getting stressy just thinking about it all.

I’m rambling. I made some notes before I started writing this post. Here are my bullet points which I will then try and explain:

• Listen to your body
• Get a routine
• Don’t feel sorry for yourself
• Be patient
• Social Media isn’t real
• My body hates alcohol

Ok – I feel better now. Bullet point number one. Sometimes we are genuinely really tired. If this you, don’t try and smash a massive workout. I’ve felt exhausted for the past few weeks but couldn’t figure out why. After a week or so of listening to my body I think it was fighting a cold/flu/virus type thing and it needed some time to kick it’s butt. So instead I went swimming every day, did full body resistance workouts, restricted my calories and told myself to man up. How very clever of you Cat! Well done! YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER TWAT. Once I STOPPED trying to ruin my immune system and faced a few days of rest I came back kicking and I’ve been in the gym every day this week and feel great for it. Sometimes you need a rest. Take a bloody rest.

Before I forget my new mantra is as follows…

How good is that? Brilliant.

Ok next bullet point about a routine. I am sloooowly finding my new routine. It goes like this: 6am get up and sort shit in the flat like laundry and dishwasher, go to the gym at 6:30 and do either weights or HIIT or some cardio, come home and shower and prep my breakfast, walk the 2.5 miles to work, work, walk the 2.5 miles home and either do something fun or just chill and have dinner and earlyish night. This works for me. It means I get enough rest, I eat good food, I get my training in and I don’t overdo things. Find what works for you. Not the people on Instagram. What works for you?

Bullet point 3. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. This ties into bullet point 1. Being physically exhausted is very different to hitting the snooze alarm. Sometimes you have to have a short sharp word with yourself and say “listen up – you’re being a lazy shit – get out of bed and go for a walk, a run, a swim, lift something… just do ANYTHING – NOW – GO ON – MOVE!!!”. I have a bad habit of feeling sorry for myself. It’s ridiculous. Go look at people with disabilities smashing their goals then wise up.

This is my most important bullet point. Patience. It takes 13 hours to build a Toyota and 6 months to build a Rolls Royce. Apply this to your health and your body and your training. It takes time. Loads of time. I have wasted months recently with inconsistent training. Smashing 8 workouts in one week and then doing F**K all for two weeks. Dumb and gets me no where. When I was super lean that was a result of EIGHT MONTHS training and clever eating (and some periods of mild eating disorders FYI). I am no longer super lean and it is my own damn fault. Stay consistent. Just keep doing something. Don’t sack it off because you can’t see anything happening. LISTEN TO YOUR OWN WORDS CAT.

We have already discussed social media. Yes fine use it for some motivation. It’s good for that. DO NOT GET SUCKED INTO IT THOUGH. Do your routine. Eat the food that’s healthy for you, that YOU enjoy and keep doing it. Do stuff you look FORWARD to doing. Don’t like the gym? Go swimming. This is working wonders for a friend of mine. She loves swimming and she is doing it consistently. Oh and by the way… remember… the people you follow on Instagram generally only post the stuff they want you to see. Think about that for a second. Do you think I posted the dominos I had on Sunday? Nope. I sure as hell posted the healthy food I prepped on Monday night though….

Lastly…. and this is a bitter prosecco flavoured pill for me to swallow. After months of telling myself it’s one thing or another the reality has hit home. My body HATES alcohol. Not just “bad hangover” hates it. But makes me feel miserable for days, messes up my digestion for days, makes me lazy and moody style hates it. So – I am going to try and steer clear of it for a while. I know. People have real issues with this and say it’s boring and bla bla bla but at the end of the day you do what makes you happy.

So – there’s a little rant! Maybe it makes sense for some of you. Maybe it doesn’t. I hope it does. It can be hard work, you get down and sad because you ate some ice cream (or a whole tub if you are me at home on Sunday… yes after my dominos – oops) but life goes on and in reality that shit doesn’t matter. Just don’t do it every day. *thumbs up*.

I’m going to try and get my health and fitness into a consistent state rather than “yeah let’s do an ironman!” or “yeah let’s weigh out every single oat that goes into our proats!”. That shit, for me, isn’t long term achievable….. let’s find out what is….

MASSIVE REAL LIFE NOT INSTAGRAM LIFE HUGS. C xxx

This title has me singing “Mama said knock you ooooout” by LL Cool J. Random. I watched Straight Outta Compton at the weekend. Maaaan it was good. Helps that I am a huge fan of their stuff, betcha didn’t expect that did you? Well I am, I used to be able to rap Straight Outta Compton word for word – what a site. The day after watching this epic masterpiece of cinematography I set off for a 5k run with Chris (ok ok he was doing 15k, whatever) and I ended up running….. 10k! Thanks very much Ice Cube and Eazy E. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it! Longest run since Ironman. Pow. I joked that it was actually more than I ran on the Ironman course seeing as I walked/crawled most of it.

Rapping aside though there is another reason I have chosen today’s title. It is time for some humble pie. Huh? What? Pie? Mmmmmm…. Piiiiiiiie. No no brain shoosh. Humble pie because I can be quite judgemental and opinionated about stuff and in my wise old age I am realising that sometimes you have to try things before assuming they are bullshit. Yes really. How about that for a life lesson. Take Kayla Itsines for example. Firstly, being the type of loser I am I just need to point out you pronounce her surname IT-SEEN-IS and not IT-SIGNS. Moving on. So when all the hoohar started happening around her Instagram account I was in the midst of my “lift weights” and “carbs are the enemy” phase. As a result I dismissed her “eat fruit” and “do 28 minutes of exercise to get abs” programme as a load of bumflefluff. Not a word. I know. It’s good though right?

How wrong was I? Nearly two years after I started training seriously I am now realising that there are loooooooads of ways to be/get in shape. I actually downloaded the “Sweat with Kayla” app to see what all the fuss was about. Upon initial viewing it was snazzy but I still wasn’t convinced it was all THAT. Turns out it probably IS all THAT. Fair enough I can’t see myself ditching my quark and chia seed jam for breakfast and replacing it with 60g of muesli with some milk BUT her workouts are mental. Properly mental. I attempted one last night after firmly deciding I could not be arsed to fight my way to the weights in my local Fitness First. I looked up a full body session and was thrilled to see it only required a skipping rope. I CAN USE MY SKIPPING ROPE! Yeah…. I bought it two years ago, never used it. Skipping rope dusted off I got my Ibiza 2015 spotify playlist fired up and started…

….oh my god what have I done….

Burpees should be outlawed. Seriously. So should jumping lunges and so should mountain climbers. I wore my Garmin to check my heart rate and it was hovering around 150-176bpm throughout the 28 minutes. To put that into perspective that is similar to my running heart rate. Aka really effing high (I am heavy and running is hard. Shoosh).

28 minutes later and I was lying in a sweaty heap on my living room floor. I lay there for around 10 minutes marvelling at how wrong I had been! The workout was SO hard I couldn’t even complete the mountain climber/push up combos! Damn you Kayla! Why must you prove me wrong in such a vile manner! Urgh.

Moral of the story? Don’t rule something out if you haven’t tried it. Don’t like cauliflower? Doesn’t mean you won’t like cauliflower rice. Don’t like the gym? Doesn’t mean you can’t smash a workout at home. I’m not plugging Kayla’s app. You could easily download something similar online but I must admit having it timed and explained right there in front of me on my phone was very helpful!

Oh and another thing…. There could be a whole ton of reasons for not making progress. OR – you might just be eating too much and drinking too much wine. Ha. These were the words of my friend Jack the other day. He has a point. Going out for dinner a dozen times over the past couple of weeks has NOT contributed to getting leaner. Ho hum. Lucky I have managed to kill my training over the past ten days. Back in the pool 3 times a week now and slowly building towards my 10km swim in August. Also starting to enjoy running. Must be something wrong with me. Just need to get my weight training sorted and I am laughing all the way to the beach in Australia in August (YASSSSSSSSSSSSSS). I am investing £65 for an hour with my marvellous friend/PT Andy on Friday and my instructions were “remind me how to lift proper weights and not just fanny around with cables and machines that I wimp out on when I am training by myself”. SO – Friday will be free weights and benches and I’ll be DAMNED if I lose my way again….

Shout out to the folks still reading this blog. Cheers y’all. It’s nice to write stuff now and again. Let’s leave the cakes alone for a while though eh. grrrrrrrrrrrrrgrumblecoconutflourgrrrrrhateyoucoconutflourgrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

C xxx

 

It happened. I made protein cake on Sunday. It was amazing.

LIES

It was awful awful awful. Blergh. Even the memory of it is making me pull a yucky face. Who on earth thought coconut flour was a good idea? WHO?! It is the work of the devil. You would be better off going down to the beach and stuffing some wet sand in your mouth. YAACK.

Turns out I really really don’t like coconut flour. So how do you say NO to take? Make it with coconut flour and chuck it in the bin. The funny thing is though – I think I already knew this but had forgotten or convinced myself it wasn’t that bad. A bit like I do every time I decide to start drinking apple cider vinegar in the mornings again. “Oh it’s not that bad, bit like really acidic apple juice” – “MOTHER OF GOD WHAT IS THIS?! THE SMELL AND TASTE IS TAKING OVER MY ENTIRE HEAD!”

 

However, whilst apple cider vinegar apparently boasts a plethora (great word) of magical health benefits I can see NO benefits of eating wet sand disguised as flour.

Basically, I love this recipe for blueberry lemon protein cake and on Sunday I knew I had the ingredients to make it. However, instead of following the recipe like a clever girl, I decided to go off piste and just make it up (this does normally work for me). So, cake batter was looking good, macros were stellar and the house smelled like vanilla. Nice. Cake didn’t sink like the Titanic when it came out the oven either which is always a good sign. Chris was so excited at the site of cake (he loves blueberry muffins) that he had already Instagrammed the final product before tasting. BIG. MISTAKE.

It was honestly like chewing on a sandy sponge. I KNOW coconut flour absorbs a lot of moisture but that wasn’t the issue here! It was just awful! In all ways possible! Moral of the story? Stick to the recipe for protein baking. I recently bought this book http://amzn.to/1oyZb1q and I have spoken before of the genius of ‘Chocolate Chilli Mango’ (the original creator of the blueberry protein cake dream. http://chocolatechillimango.com/

Sigh – I am at work staring at my protein bar and inwardly cursing it. It is laughing at me. It is. Honestly. “HA! What happened to your baking skills? Loser”. Urgh whatever. I will follow the recipe later when we try again!

Sorry to disappoint.

Oh by the way, my parents were visiting at the weekend. Mum is most put out she didn’t get enough kudos for the idea of batch cooking and boxing up food for the week. So here is your praise mum:

YOU—-ARE—-SO—-CLEVER—-THANK—-YOU—-FOR—-TEACHING—-ME—-EVERYTHING—-I—-KNOW

Happy now?!

Anyway – back to business. Nearly two months into the year and I am STILL flailing around in the world of health and fitness like some wounded animal. Things are sure taking their time to get back into routine. Morning alarm clocks are being snoozed, macro tracking is being ignored… deary me. On the plus side I am enjoying life. Even if my abs are still on holiday somewhere. Lazy bastards. Get back to work and stop eating all the pies. It’s pretty weird I am currently picturing my “abs” as little sweat band sporting minions. Get out more Cat. Seriously.

Taking each day at a time for training though I skipped the 5:45am alarm for swimming with Chris and have decided instead to go at lunch time. At least I am going!

OMG I nearly forgot! Ran TWICE at the weekend. On Sunday it was my longest run since Ironman. FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE MIIIIIIIIIIIIIILES. Hahaha. Almost a marathon. Still – it was good! I am quite enjoying the running at the minute. This is unheard of for me! I normally hate it! Turns out Britney Spears and Michael Jackson are quite the running companions. Far better than doof doof trance…. for now.

Think I will try and throw in some yoga again this week. I can barely flex my ankle at the minute. The Achilles is tighter than…. a tightrope? Ouchee. Running through the discomfort is probably not doctor recommended.

Going to Google some protein brownie recipes now. Surely I can’t f**k them up…. SURELY.

Much love to you all… but not you Mr coconut flour

C xxx

Told you the next blog would be about cake – but I still haven’t made any. Sorry about that. I’ve been a bit busy… MOVING IN WITH MY BOYFRIEND. Ahhhhwooooooooooo!

Yes, Chris moved in at the weekend, lovely lovely. He is waist deep in Ironman training which meant on Valentines day we went for a run. WTF? Seriously though, have two really strong cups of black coffee and a yummy breakfast and then go for a run. I felt like Usain Bolt and Mo Farah’s lovechild. Kind of. I have read loads about the benefits of coffee/caffeine prior to training but always though it was kind “meh”. I drink a lot of coffee anyway, it can barely keep me awake on a long day in the office, what difference can it really make to a run/gym session? Turns out – A LOT.

Couple of points to address today. Firstly, I signed up to my next challenge. A 10km swim in a glacial lake in Wales in August. I wanted to do it without a wetsuit but turns out that’s pretty much impossible given the water will be between 12 and 14 degrees = hello hypothermia. So it looks like I will be swimming WITH a wetsuit. Probably a good thing given I got this information yesterday:

Ahhhhh it’ll be FINE. I was in the pool this morning with Chris. Swam 1200m. Pahaha. Just gotta do that 8 more times and I’ll be laughing. Lucky I am finally kicking my butt back into training and eating properly.

So on the subject of eating properly I had a message from my friend Ruth this morning. Ruth is ripped. Always has been. The little beast had a six pack in high school for gods sake. I hate her. No no – I don’t really. She is a fairly badass footballer and is currently training to be more badass. Urgh! I posted a picture of my highly OCD food prep the other night and I had some questions about food prepping. So I thought I would write a sort of “you cannot f**k this up” guide to food prep.

Think of food prep as my friend Tom Wright thinks of it (https://www.facebook.com/TomWrightFit/?fref=ts) . It is essentially leftovers. But leftovers you can make 5 days in advance and then look forward to during the working week. I started food prepping around 2 years ago and I can honestly say it has made the biggest difference to my daily diet/nutrition/health/body composition. Chris is now in on the act too. Our lunches this week are basically miniature roast dinners. 1 large chicken breast, 1 medium sweet potato, couple of handfuls of mixed veg and a handful of spinach. That sounds boring as hell doesn’t it? BUT – the chicken was grilled with cajun seasoning, the sweet potatoes were roasted with garlic and sea salt and the mixed veg has real butter on it that melts into everything when you heat it up at lunch time.

Total calories and macros for the meal? 485kcal – 43g carbs – 8g fat – 60g protein. Now if you are not swimming/running/gymming every day then you can happily ditch some or all of the potato and replace it with butternut squash. Butternut squash is the low carb cousin. Roast it until it’s crispy on the edges (aka almost burnt) and you won’t really notice much difference.

So things to consider for weekly food prep. Make sure you like the food you are prepping. Sounds like a stupid thing to say but there is no point making a ton of food you’re going to dread eating after a couple of days. I get burnt with this quite a lot as I am very into my food and get bored eating the some stuff. Best way of avoiding this is box up the ingredients separately e.g. a box of chicken, a box of sweet potato, a box of tomato with olive oil and balsamic etc etc. This way you can pick and choose each morning what you want that day. If you are not so bothered then go ahead and box up the actual meals for the week.

A lot of people are worried about food being “off” or “weird” after a few days in the fridge. I have NEVER been sick from food I have prepped earlier in the week. Ever. Not once. Nil. Nad. Doesnee happen.

Step by step guide to food prep…

1. Make sure you have plenty of decent tupperware. I like these from Amazon http://amzn.to/1Vj4RaJ
2. Keep it simple. You can add dressings etc when you are eating the food. Stick to a protein source, carb source and some veg in the tupperware. Take your dressings and sauces seperately (obviously ignore this if you’ve made a big batch of curry/chilli)
3. Get good at multitasking:
   1. Get your chicken breasts and lay them on a tray, sprinkle over your cajun or salt and pepper or spices of choices. Pop them under the grill and keep an eye on them.
   2. Peel and chop your sweet potatoes if you need the carbs. Little bit of oil, salt, pepper, in the oven at 200c until browned/soft.
   3. Whilst they are cooking lay out your tupperware tubs and pop a handful of spinach and some raw veg in there e.g. frozen peas/brocolli/peppers/tomatoes.
   4. Check your chicken and turn it over if you need to.
   5. Think about adding extras to the tupperware. If you are having fish put a wedge of lemon in the tub. If it’s plain veg get a teaspoon of butter in there (better to keep oils etc in the office to add when the food is going to be eaten).
   6. When everything is cooked let it cool and then divide between your boxes.
   7. Put boxes in fridge. That is basically it.

Some really good options for food preps are chillis, curries, stews and soups. You soon get used to eating chilli or curry with spinach instead of rice. I think I actually prefer it now. Especially if the chilli is topped with some cheese and avocado. Drool.

I think I’ve covered the basics here. If you think I’ve missed anything though or you have questions then just give me a shout. Oh and the internet is amazing for recipes (like you didn’t already know). People ask me for recipes all the time but the truth is I get most of mine from Pinterest or just googling “low carb chilli” or “healthy chicken curry”. Just steer clear of anything that promotes “low fat” too much. Don’t be scared of fat. It tastes good and it makes you feel more satisfied with your meal.

Wordcount says I’ve gone over 1000 words. Oops. This was meant to be a quick guide to food prep!

Let me know how you get on. Tupperware army.

C xx

Sounds a bit dodge doesn’t it? It’s not meant to. Maybe I have just been hanging out with dirty minded people for too long…

I’m not doing very well at regular writing am I? It seems to be a bit stop start at the minute. A bit like my enthusiasm for healthy food and gym sessions. I had an absolute tantrum last week. I don’t know what is going on with me but I just CANNOT…BE…ARSED on more occasions than I care to admit at the minute. For example, last week, in the gym, lifting heavier on the leg press than ever before, texting the boyf “wahoo – I am DEAD strong”… ten minutes later, nuh, can’t be bothered, going home. I felt like some party pooper little child. I could only have been in there 20 minutes. I spoke to a few friends and the consensus seems to be a lack of direction/routine and no real goal in sight. I guess that makes sense…

So, to relate this current phenomenon of “nah… going home to watch Breaking Bad for the second time” to the title above, I am stripping things right back and keeping things super simple. Apparently trying to go to the gym every day at the minute is just exhausting my enthusiasm for it. So, instead, I am going to do THREE gym sessions a week which will focus my energy into each session and make me say “yessss training tonight” and then I can swim or run or yoga on the other days. One upper body, one lower body, one functional strength (jumping onto boxes and such). I am also going to try and strip things back on the food front.

I was visiting the boyfs grandparents over the weekend. I love visiting them, such lovely people and it is great to get out of London sometimes. They have been following a special diet to try and improve their health and the book they are using is really very good. I won’t go into a ton of details but basically it focuses on the health of your gut and specifically the bacteria that exists there. It just got me thinking about some of the things I have been consuming recently… Diet soft drinks, low calorie hot chocolate amongst other things. Obviously it goes without saying that these aren’t brilliant for us but actually it was really interesting how certain foods etc can mess up our digestive systems. Anyway – point being – I am going to try and focus on the whole food approach again.

I went food shopping yesterday, as I generally do on a Sunday. Treated myself to Waitrose because I wanted Total 0% and quark and Lidl simply don’t stock them, urgh. Looking around the chicken aisle and they do three WHOLE chickens for £10. That’s terrible isn’t it? But I justified the chicken’s happiness by telling myself it was Waitrose and they were therefore likely to be RSPCA Farm Assured etc etc. I hope anyway. Bought said chickens and roasted ALL THREE in a one-er last night. Let them cool and then stripped all the meat off and popped it into a tupperware box. That’s now lunch and dinner every day this week. Winner. Lunch today was so simple I thought it would be insanely boring. Actually in reality it was nicer than a lot of lunches I have had recently. Bag of salad leaves, 4 baby plum tomatoes, a chicken breast (when you learn to cook chicken so it is still juicy you are really winning at life) and a dollop of reduced fat hummus. BAD. Bought hummus?! Get a grip Cat you have a magimix. Make it yourself. Yes well I was tired and aspects of “nah I am going home to watch Netflix” were still on my mind. So yeah – lunch was winner! Hummus as a salad dressing is awesome.

For whatever reason I can’t stop thinking about bloody Maria from The Sound Of Music today. I think it’s because I saw someone’s status on facebook talking about snowflakes that stay on their nose and eyelashes. AAAAAAAAAAAARGH. Shut up shut up shut up. That then led me to think of brown paper packages tied up with string (kill me now) which made me think of simple pleasures which made me want to write this blogster.

Boyf – hate that word, must use his real name – CHRIS asked me what my next blog would be about. I said “cake”. I lied. On the subject of cake though another megafriend (Beth – hiya) suggested I start baking protein goodies and then selling them to friends etc that want to have their cake and eat it. So to speak. In that manner here is a list of my current creations and you can let me know if you like the sound of them.

• Chocolate Brownie Protein Loaf
• Blueberry Vanilla Protein Loaf
• Banana Protein Bread

These are my three foolproof recipes that I constantly go back to. If, however, you have a particular treat that you want turned into a protein health creation then let me know and I will get in the kitchen and do some experimenting. I still need to try the protein carrot cake thing.

My friend Abi moves to London this weekend. The lassy I met during Ironman Wales training. It looks like swimming, cycling and running are going to be firmly back on the cards. Maybe that will stop me nesting in my blankets on the sofa quite so much. Oh and my facebook friend Sadie is contemplating entering the world of triathlon too! Apparently inspired by my Ironman written ramblings. Very cool indeed.

Cake pictures in the next post or no post at all.

Ciao. XX

Ha, I’ve never even seen Scary Movie. I just remember pretending to love it when everyone else was banging on about it all the time. However, this quote still makes me chuckle. I can’t remember who, but I used to repeat this an awful lot for larfs with one of my friends. Identify yourselves! Who was it?! More importantly though, I went to the gym this morning. About bloody time. Seriously, I think I’ve been twice since Christmas. Woops. Anyway, I decided to do some upper body work. PAHAHAHAHA. Then my arms just laughed in my face and said how about no? Unless we are lifting chips to your gob we ain’t doing nuffin’. Bastard bloody upper body strength. It has DESERTED me.

I used to be able to do unassisted dips. Well not any more! Now we are struggling with 30kg assistance. Laaaaaaaame. It’s totes fine though. I will get stronger again. I am giving myself a month to get my strooong haaaaaaaaand game back on point.

I was pretty pumped this morning when my alarm went off at 6:45am. I think my mind and my body had FINALLY admitted defeat in the face of having to get up. It has won the battle of the snooze button for the past few weeks (ahem… months) but I think we may finally be reaching a mutual agreement. Sometimes I just really really don’t wanna train though. Y’know? Sometimes there is Netflix and sweat pants and central heating and cups of tea. Bah.

Not any more though, or rather not every morning from now on. I have committed myself to doing SOMETHING every day (except Monday which will be the rest day from now on). Even if it is 15 minutes in the gym doing some HIIT on the bike. It is better than nothing and it will get me back into the routine. About time. OH MY GOD SHUT UP SMUG LITTLE VOICE IN MY HEAD – YES I KNOW I HAVE BEEN LAZY – PIPE DOWN – WE ARE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT NOW OK?

If you follow me on Instagram you will see I have seriously stepped up the chicken burger game. I fear I will never eat anything else besides these round patties of joy. 50% thigh meat + 50% breast meat + spring onions + bread crumbs + garlic cloves + splash of milk all blitzed together. Hell fire they are unreal. Especially with my rekindled obsession for soda bread. I am going to have it AGAIN for dinner tonight.

Oh and we have some exciting new people reading! Hello to Laura and Holly (Kate you already got a mention I’m afraid). Get this too – Laura has signed up to do a Half Ironman this year. #LAD. She will be competing in the same event as my other half (he is aiming for Kona qualification so will be doing the full distance). I will be on the sidelines this year with the banners and the McDonald’s at the finish line. Hurrah. Seriously though, whenever someone gets in touch to say hello and let me know they are reading this it makes my day. Really really awesome to hear what people think of the rubbish (ahem I mean serious conversation) I spout.

Oh and by the way, see how it’s Burns Night on Monday? Haggis is the traditional dish right? But Haggis is minging. WRONG. Just very quickly. Do you eat wafer thin ham? Do you eat chicken products like chicken slices etc? If the answer is yes then you may want to shut me up now. If you do some brief research into what constitutes these products you will probably be fairly shocked to find bones, cartilage, sinew, connective tissue and various other yummy bits of an animal. Now at least with Haggis you know what you are getting. So if you’ve never tried it give it a go. No it isn’t six pack goal food but it’s nay as bad as ye think pal ay? (Bit of Scottish for you there). Plus it tastes lush. Bit like spicy mince?

Anyway, to conclude (oh my god awful memories of writing essays in school and using that phrase), TO CONCLUDE:

1. I am back in the gym 6 days a week alternating between lower body strength sessions, upper body strength sessions, HIIT (High intensity cardio) sessions, LISS (Low intensity cardio) sessions
2. I am using myfitnesspal app to record my daily diet. I am aiming for a balance of around 40% protein, 35% fat and 25% carbs (thus far keeping my fat %%% is proving the biggest challenge, I just love dem avocados)
3. I am trying to drink 3L of water a day again – got my 1L water bottle on my desk at work
4. I am trying to maintain a healthy balance between all of the above and a fun lifestyle e.g. it was my best friends engagement lunch on Saturday afternoon. I had about 3 glasses of prosecco, 3 glasses of red wine and a 3 course lunch whereupon the main course was a steak sandwich with truffle fries. Ha. Not very balanced, but absolutely worth it

So there we go! Latest update for you. I also de-cluttered my kitchen at the weekend. I am now a lean mean food prepping machine. I need to get the cakes back on the agenda though. I think that will be a Friday job.

If you have goals for the year then get in touch.

Keep walking or running or gymming or yoga’ing as much as possible and eating that veg and living that fun life now and again. No one likes a boring babe.

Och aye! C xx

I don’t mean “do you have sleepless nights filled with human eating babybels” but I have had a few people tell me now that eating cheese before bedtime can cause nightmares. Pretty sure that’s nonsense to be honest…

My final words to the boyfriend last night were “I am DEFINITELY going to the gym in the morning – I will text you when I am in there at 7am”. Alarm went off at 6:30am… aaaaaaaaaaand I didn’t get up. My reasoning? I had had 8 hours of absolute mental TERROR thanks to my completely ridiculous subconscious. Last night my dreams consisted of using the fire exit in Sports Direct and being held captive at the store managers home whilst being made to throw a huge weight attached to a long rope across her living room. Then when they got bored of that they decided to put the kids cuddly toy UP the chimney. Then the whole living room caught fire and the gas pipes started to explode. Turns out my subconscious based this in Newcastle suburbs so next thing I know I am running through an exploding gas fiery hell hole towards the train. The train is going to Wales. Not much use to me. I need to get to Hexham! Get off the train and wait for a taxi. Whilst waiting for a taxi I find a baby lamb and start feeding it water from some weird little cup. Taxi turns out to be a 4×4 with a livestock trailer attached. Very handy. Oh no wait there’s Mum and Dad. Give lamb to total stranger and “DING DONG DING DONG” oh that’s my alarm going off to go to the gym. No thanks. Think I’ll sleep for a bit and try and calm my mental head. Oh wait that’s not gonna happen? Ok awesome.

For real – I am exhausted just remembering this. Can someone find out how to stop nightmares? There must be something? Anyway, moving on (poor baby lamb with total strangers). So I didn’t go to the gym and last night I had Pizza (Deliveroo will NOT let me be lean) with Lizi and when I put all of yesterday’s food into myfitnesspal I had consumed around 3500kcals. Awesome. Good work Cat. You absolute beast. So today I was back to “well I could just eat NOTHING for two days and smash the gym and that might help”…. Don’t be ridiculous Cat, that’s a shocking idea. Just eat normally and get over it. So that is what I am going to do… Aaaaaaaand I’m going to go to the gym tonight. Seriously. I mean it.

What a change from this time last year eh?! This time last year I was training for THREE HOURS EVERY DAY. Mental. Whatever. I will get back to it over the next few weeks.

So I think I’ve found a good carrot cake recipe. Gonna try it out tonight. Maybe. Probably not but I will DEFINITELY try it out over the next few days. I need a good kick up the arse at the minute. Maybe it’s because the bathroom at home needs cleaning. A mucky house makes a mucky mind for me. No not the fun mucky mind. The “urgh my bathroom is a mess so why bother with anything” kind of mucky mind. How OCD is that? Ha. What a freak.

I’ve got an awesome dinner tonight though. Did you see the chicken burgers I made the other night? Ooft they were good. Better than any McChickenblerghblergh. Anyway I have ONE left in the fridge so I’m going to chop it in half to make two discs and then I’m going to top it with spinach and poached eggs! PHWOAR. Lushness. Can’t wait. Especially since it will be post weights and HIIT so I’ll be feeling like a lean mean training machine again instead of some psycho Sports Direct Door Policy Criminal.

Taking my bike for a service tomorrow too. Looks like I will be back on it this weekend. Should be interesting. I haven’t touched it since Ironman. Ha. OH MY GOD! I did my yoga DVD this week! It was actually SO good! Ok I’m not exactly pretzel pose ready but it was nice and I am going to do it a lot more often. Highly recommended!

Funny how being out of weights and regular gym sessions for so long can make you feel like a total beginner all over again. But fear not. I know what I am doing. Dips and chins and leg press and all manner of rowing and bike intervals. Wahoo. I need new music. Some kind of dancey electro crap. Someone send me some good stuff? Muchos appreciatododos

C xxx

I just Googled this term and according to Urban Dictionary it means I am trashy with fake tan and white hair and horrid tacky clothes. They’ve been spying on me again dammit.

Fortunately I am talking about vegetables and not fake tan. I just had lunch and it was probably 60% grated carrot. I love grated carrot. There’s something about it. When I used to go to Pizza Hut (only Franco Manca these days luv) and hit up the salad bar I used to mainline the pasta salad but ALSO the grated carrot! Weird. If only I had stuck to the carrot…

So as I mentioned last week I got a food processor for Christmas. It was mad expensive and I don’t expect ANYONE to be shelling out the £££’s for one of these (my uncle got discount from the store he works in #playa) but if you want to make your life a lot easier (and let’s face it – more fun) then I seriously recommend getting one. I grated 1kg of carrots into submission in around 2 minutes. I was so excited I even showed Erin when she walked into the kitchen (no wonder she is moving out – sniff).

Carrots are cool man. Seriously. Don’t be turning your nose up at them! We don’t like those boiled mushy mingers. We like freshly grated or roasted with honey and butter or baked into a cake. Oooh actually that’s a good idea. I bet I can come up with a carrot cake recipe that won’t turn me into Jabba. (I don’t even like Star Wars but that guy is not a role model).

So my weekend was good! I went to visit Chris’s family in Portsmouth. What a bunch of crackers they are… AND they have dogs AND they live near horses. Sigh. One day I will buy a pony again #poorlittlewhitegirl. Anyway, it was lovely and I got “nanny” cooking. ‘Cor I love nanny cooking. “Would you like a snack?” – “No no honestly I’m fine” – “I’ll just make some pancakes for you all” – WAAAAAAAA amazing! I love pancakes. I am definitely doing better at embracing the happy healthy balance thing. As an experiment I tracked all the food I ate over the weekend (except for the romantic pub steak dinner – that one just got demolished with a glass of red). So the point is, if I don’t throw caution to the wind and adopt a “f**k it I’ve let myself down so may as well eat everything and anything” attitude it is actually not so hard to enjoy a weekend of “treats” and not completely obliterate your efforts to maintain a strong/lean body composition. Happy Days.

 

Ok so a diet of Haribo, pancakes and crispy aromatic duck is not exactly green juice and steamed cod but it was damn tasty and I had a fab time! Even trotted round a little 4km loop with the boyf (he’s dead good… tell’s me I am doing really well when in reality I am running 10 minute miles for 4000m… whatever – it was better than nothing).

So moving on to a new week. I have been chatting about my spiralizer a lot more with fellow fan Aimee Adams. She pointed me in the direction of some killer recipes so tonight I am making… wait for it…. “SLUTTY PASTA”. Here is the recipe – http://bit.ly/1vvGwWq

Along with my courgette dream dinner I am attempting my new yoga dvd… this should be interesting. Jenny T is coming over so I will get her to take some pictures. I haven’t done yoga in over 6 months so I would imagine it will go something like this…

I think that’s enough for today. Oooh no wait! I got an amazing email from a lovely girl called Kate last week. I’ve never met her but she read my entire blog and gave lovely feedback via email so Kate if you are reading – THANKS!

To the rest of you I think we will write about some more recipes later this week. Maybe we should look at cake again? It’s been AGES and Poundland have amaaaaaaaaazing cake baking stuff for…. £1 each. Seriously though you gotta go get some.

Au revoir de la jeune fille de carotte (Goodbye from the carrot girl according to Google translate… man I love Google.)

xxx

Did I mention I got a Magimix from Santa? Well – I think it is going to change my life. I am not even exaggerating. I’ve used it once and I am literally sitting thinking up dips and sauces etc to make tonight. What. A. Saddo. I don’t even care, until you try my spinach pesto you cannot mock me. Unless of course you don’t like pesto – in which case you can carry on mocking…

So following on from yesterdays promise of giving these posts a bit more structure I am going to base today’s post on my 2016 fitness and food thus far. Thus = fancy.

I promised I would be honest about my eating and training so let’s keep it simple with a little diary? I am not sure if people give a damn about it but it will give some scope to the balance I am trying to achieve?

Monday: I worked from home and trained with Andy at Fitness First in the morning. The session was basically a test of my current fitness, balance and flexibility etc. We balanced on our knees on exercise balls (the big ones everyone bounces around), we did as many push ups as we could in 1 minute, we planked for as long as we could and then we did the 2.5km run as fast as we could. I then spent the day answering emails/fighting gas pipe leaks (not GAS – stop sniggering)/cleaning and tidying the flat. I am a shocker for not eating if I am busy at home so my diet consisted of a protein bar at 11am, half a roast chicken at 2pm (kindly supplied by my other half) and then I ordered sushi for dinner. HOWEVER, I didn’t just go hell for leather on the sushi (I can really put away a lot of raw fish and rice). No no I got my phone out and looked up the calories and carbs and protein and fat in my favourites and then I substituted a few maki rolls for some chicken skewers instead. Ergo: I got my sushi and I ate it too – all within my macros and calories for the day. Result? I was happy and healthy!

Tuesday: Back to work! I walked to work (burns around 200kcals) and actually didn’t eat anything until my lunch. Don’t worry too much about skipping breakfast. If you love breakfast – EAT IT. If you don’t love it – LEAVE IT. Provided you don’t starve yourself it won’t do you any harm. Anyway, for lunch I decided on Itsu (can you spot a theme with my takeaway of choice?). Itsu is magic because their website tells you the macros and calories for all their dishes. I had chicken noodle soup and a low carb salmon and egg salad. Both amazing. Again – happy and healthy. Mid afternoon snack was a protein bar and a cup of tea. Walk home where I stopped to pick up veg and chicken from Lidl and then I got to work with my spiralizer and Magimix. CHECK THIS OUT…

Recipes? Thought you might say that.

Easiest pesto ever = big bunch of fresh basil, big handful of pine nuts, half palm sized chunk of parmesan, 3 tablespoons olive oil, juice of half a lemon, pinch of sea salt, three big handfuls of raw spinach, some water to make it move around the blender. That’s it! Blend it and get it tubbed up for adding to courgetti, chicken, salads, whatever you like.

BUT – be warned this is heavy on the fat and therefore heavy on the calories. I am therefore going to work on a lighter version. Stay tuned.

Oh and if you don’t have a spiralizer yet, go and get one. This is mine – http://bit.ly/1RhDbok

Wednesday: For the first time in a LONG time I actually got up early enough to head over to the gym. I am fairly useless for weight training or HIIT when I am sleepy and hungry so I kept it short and sweet with a ten minute bike warm up, 4 sets on the leg press, 3 sets on the hamstring curl and 3 sets of glute bridge/weighted hip thrusts. I even had time to head home for two poached eggs on half an ezekiel muffin (more to come on my new favourite products – these are in the top 3!), some smoked salmon and some spinach. I packed my prepped lunch into my bag and walked to work. Lunch was my courgetti with pesto and a grilled chicken breast and I kid you not. It was nicer than a Christmas sandwich. SERIOUSLY. It was so so good. Protein bar and cup of tea for sweet tooth cravings and I am powering through this bloggy stuff like a woman possessed.

Is that useful? I hope so. I had an awful lot of feedback from people yesterday saying they appreciated my honesty in yesterdays post. I am sure my mum thinks I share too much but sometimes it is good to get stuff out in the open. Besides – if it gives support to someone struggling with similar issues then let the confessions roll I say.

My yoga DVD and ankle weights arrived today! I’ve already been asked if it makes walking to and from work harder (the ankle weights… not the DVD #obvs). The answer shall be revealed tomorrow I guess.

If anyone has requests for recipes etc then let me know. I am going to be trying a lighter hummus in the magimix soon! Yes – I am actually excited about that.

Happy eating, C xxx

Waaaaa waaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaa….. Back to work… Waaaaaa… No more chocolate coins for breakfast… Waaaa… No more champagne in place of water…. Waaaaaaaaa

*Sigh* Well not only is this my first post of 2016 it is also my first post in about a billion months (exaggeration still going strong you’ll be pleased to see/hear). That song reckons the first cut is the deepest… aye whatever… try the first 7am alarm pal.

So what’s new? Actually quite a lot is new. We know I met a booooy. That is still going very well. If you missed it on Instagram/Facebook yesterday then you should know he brought me flowers and a rotisserie chicken as a gift. Well – I don’t really need to say anything else on that one do I? Macro friendly presents, aye ok. Ooooh there it is, MACROS have been mentioned. Yep, I promised I’d be getting back on it and here I am. I am a lean mean spiralizing machine. (Well – I will be as of tonight).

With 2015 well and truly behind me it is about time I briefed those of you that give a damn on my recent findings. If you have been following along over the past year you may be aware that early last year, actually it may have been mid 2014(!!), I was pretty lean. 18% body fat and 10st lean. Hands up who thinks I am still that weight?

………….HA

Exactly. So it turns out I am now 10kgs (1.5st) heavier than I was at my absolute leanest. Bring on the mental anguish, the guilt, the self loathing. But actually. I am ok with it! This is seriously strange. With a history of food disorders and low self esteem I should be throwing my lunch up right now and sitting in a mild sweat of panic. But I’m not. I’m really ok. In fact I am more than ok. It seems that old saying “Learn to love yourself” actually has some grounds. I had a fabulous Christmas break with my family and loved ones. I am not going to feel bad about that.

Has anyone made New Year resolutions? I don’t really buy into the resolution. I prefer goals. So without further ado here are some goals that I would like to achieve…

1. Master the chin up – this one isn’t getting away from me. I have been working on and off towards this goal for 18 months. This is it. This is the year I will do it!
2. Squat twice my body weight – given I currently cannot squat AT ALL this should be interesting. Cue lots of foam rolling and stretching to get my hip flexors working properly.
3. Bench press my body weight – Best shift those 10kgs ha.
4. Deadlift 1.5 times my body weight – I reckon this will happen first
5. Run 2.5km in 10 minutes – I tried this yesterday and I was 14.5 minutes… oh and nearly throwing up
6. Start some serious long distance swimming – this has a bit more background to go with it…

I can’t remember if I mentioned it but I was contemplating my next big challenge post Ironman? Well…. I have got it into my head that I want to do a massive swim. Like properly massive. Like 21 miles massive. 12 hours constant swimming massive. No wetsuit allowed massive. Go and Google swimming Loch Lomond if you are interested. HOWEVER – this is going to take more than a year to train for so I am being realistic and will set some distances to achieve throughout the year. (More to follow on this).

Did everyone have a good Christmas? I did. Really good. I ate and drank whatever I fancied. Who is contemplating a new year “detox” or crazy gym attendance? How about instead of that we all hold hands and charge into the rest of January with a refreshed lifestyle? That sounds like such a load of bollocks. What I mean is, instead of smashing it for the next week or so, maybe we can spread it out and make life a little easier?

A friend of mine helped me sort some calorie and macro goals yesterday. This ties into my basic plan to get back into 4 pack abs territory. But not only that. I want to avoid the “look hot in a bikini” quest and instead focus on serious fitness. In my head that means I will be chasing the goal of being the strongest, fastest, fittest, leanest, fruit and vegiest (yeah you heard me – VEGIEST) person I can possibly be. I hate hypocrites and I will always tell the absolute truth so prepare for some major honesty….

When I first started this blog I was still struggling with mild bulimia. I was still occasionally binging and I was struggling to find a balance between seriously healthy eating and the occasional treat. It would often turn into chicken and broccoli five days a week followed by a mammoth Friday binge and blergh. I haven’t told many people about that but I want you to be under no illusions when it comes to body composition and lifestyle.

This time though we are going to do this properly. Health and Happiness. When you think about it isn’t as simple as it seems. Can you be healthy and happy? That’s what I want to learn. Starving and depriving myself of a glass of red wine with my lushy flatmate on a Friday night doesn’t make me happy. Never having a slice of birthday cake in the office doesn’t make me happy. Finding a balance is going to be vital.

A few people said they were looking forward to my posts being up and running again. That was great to hear. I hope to give them a bit more structure going forward. Today I just had to get some stuff off my chest. Now let the games begin.

So, my name is Cat Macpherson and I am 28 years old. I live in London. I am 5’7 and 75 kgs (nearly 11.5 stone). I wear a size 12 top and currently a size 12-14 trousers/jeans. I have studied nutrition and I have completed a full distance Ironman. I am in a relationship. Over the next 12 months I will be lifting weights, running miles, cycling miles, swimming km’s, walking to and from work every day and incorporating yoga. My diet will be a cycle of high carb and low carb days. I will be avoiding any seriously processed supplements with the exception of whey isolate. I will increase carbohydrate intake during peak cardio periods. I will allow myself wine and cake and chocolate as and when it seems reasonable. This should see me drop between 8 and 10kg’s and get the abs back up and running.

If you want to join me then shoot me a message. I will be sharing my recipes and my workouts and my high points and my low points. Total honesty.

Enough of that! I bought a spiralizer! I am going to make loads of weird curly stuff out of veg! I am going to Lidl tonight to buy fish and chicken and veg and other bits and pieces. The post tomorrow will feature my weeks food prepping and my workouts. Lucky lucky you!

Seriously though – call/text/Facebook/Instagram/email… I can chat food and fitness 24/7 so let it flow and let’s get this show on the road…

C xx